


At The End Of The World (Never Coming Home)

by MetaphoricalWhore (orphan_account)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Best Friend's Funeral, Cigarettes, Death, Death of a Significant Other, Funerals, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Probably Breaking All The Rules of Christianity, Recreational Drug Use, church, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9351194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MetaphoricalWhore
Summary: They blocked it all out, trying to focus on the stale-cigarette-smoke smell that clung to their bedding and their jacket or the burn in the back of their throat where the smoke from their joint hit the spot they’d screamed raw, but even while ignoring the situation, it was all too real.ORThe one about my best friend's funeral





	

_Fifteen years,_ they thought bitterly, curled up in a ball in the loft of their bedroom, joint in between their fingers, tip hanging out the window. _Fifteen years old, fifteen years together and now this._

They still couldn’t process it all, but expected it would hit within an hour or two, especially with where they were going. But still, they squeezed their eyes shut and tried to block it out. They blocked out their clothes (a soft grey sweater, black skinny jeans, and their nice pair of black shoes), they blocked out the sound of their mother in the bathroom, less than fifteen feet away, sniffling and wiping away tears, they blocked out the thought of what had happened nine days before and had catapulted their life into catastrophe. They blocked out the truck, nose-deep into a tiny red Subaru, her ocean-blue hair (or maybe it was teal) falling into lifeless eyes. They blocked it all out, trying to focus on the stale-cigarette-smoke smell that clung to their bedding and their jacket or the burn in the back of their throat where the smoke from their joint hit the spot they’d screamed raw, but even while ignoring the situation, it was all too real.

“Mikayla, honey,” Their mother whispered, opening their door with a watery smile. “It’s time to go.”

“Not my name.” They growled, dropping the joint out the window, sitting up and rubbing at their eyes, hoping they didn’t smear their eyeliner too terribly. No, fuck it, they hoped they did. They hoped they looked like just as much of a mess as they really were.

“Is this the time for this argument, come on, we’ve gotta go, Ja-“

“Don’t say her name.” They snapped, breathing in sharply. “Do not.”

“Okay.” Their mom whispered, sniffing. “Okay.”

 

The ride was short. The church was only about a half-mile from their house, but no matter how hard they tried, their parents said they couldn’t walk. “We go as a family,” their parents had said, or something equally ridiculous that meant they had no time to work their feelings out on their own, which meant they would be walking into the church a veritable bomb of emotion and anger.

Anger. They weren’t angry at the driver of the red truck, there was nothing he could have done. They were angry at _her_ mother, the woman who was supposed to protect her that had ultimately gotten her killed. It was hard to be angry at a dead person though, they thought, especially when you’re going to their funerals.

Their grandmother was waiting outside the church. Anger recoiled in their stomach – The woman didn’t even know her, or her mother. The woman didn’t even know who she was mourning, the woman had no right to be here. “Mikayla, oh, I’m so sorry, baby!” She crooned, hugging them, or attempting to, as much as a four-inch height difference would allow.

They didn’t say anything, just standing there, looking at the church and the doorman they’d seen so many times coming here with _her_ , now dressed in black, smile erased from his face. They walked inside the church, hating the way everything looked normal but was dead silent, hating the way everyone was dressed in black, was mourning. They shuffled up the aisle as quietly as possible, receiving touches on the shoulder and pitying smiles and assurances on their way, and slumped into a seat, purple notebook falling to the floor next to them. Their mother sat on one side of them, and when they turned to look who they had sat next to – Taylor. The name sprung to their mind easily. _Her friend, her classmate for years, her confidant while in school, the crutch they could never have been._

“I’m sorry.” They said quietly, reaching out and laying a hand on her knee. 

“Shut up.” Taylor whispered, sniffling through a watery smile and offering them a package of Kleenex. 

The boy to Taylor’s right looked different. Dalton, they remembered, _her_ sometimes-not-really-boyfriend. He had dyed his hair recently, it was no longer almost the same ocean-blue-or-maybe-teal that _her_ hair had been, now there was black stains on the tips of his ears, black underneath his fingernails. He nodded quietly at them, they nodded back. They knew. He knew.

“We are gathered here today…” They tuned the pastor out, in all of his rotund, red-faced glory. He didn’t know her, he didn’t know her mother either. Someone who actually knew who had died should have been giving the eulogy, but that wasn’t going to happen. They hated the way he was so careless about it, letting her name roll off of his lips like it was nothing, like it wasn’t the most precious thing in the world, crushed, neck snapped.

They looked up at the stage, behind the pastor, and bit down on their lip to keep from screaming. _Her_ father was right in front of them, _her_ father wouldn’t appreciate it. But they were royally, incredibly, eternally pissed, because where there should have been two coffins, or one coffin and an urn, there were two marble boxes, one green, one pink, and both garishly out of place. 

_“Do you ever think about death?” She had asked, fifteen days, twenty-one hours and thirty-five minutes before, her head in their lap, eyes closed easily. “Or like, your funeral?”_

_“Yeah.” They admitted, voice higher than they’d have liked. “Yeah, a lot, actually. Why?”_

_“I don’t know.” She mumbled. They carded their fingers through her hair, watching the way the blue flowed like the ocean it was the colour of. Both of them were quiet for a while, maybe ten minutes, before she spoke again. “I want buried.” She whispered so quietly they almost didn’t hear her. “Like, in a coffin, a real one. In the cemetery on the hill, the one where you can see the river. If I die, I mean.”_

_“Well, if you die before I do, I’ll do my best to get you the best damn coffin ever.” They laughed, leaning down and kissing her forehead._

_“That’s probably the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me, Mika.” She laughed, coffee-coloured eyes bright._

_“Probably,” They admitted, laughing. “But I mean it. I’ll try.”_

They had failed somehow, they had fucked everything up. She was trapped now, trapped as a pile of dust in a little marble box, a little green marble box, definitely not a coffin, no question about it. They had specifically told her father what she had said, about wanting buried, and he had specifically said he’d do so, but he obviously had not. Little white lies weren’t so little and white when they held the eternity of someone in their balance.

“Would anyone like to speak?” The pastor was saying, managing to pretend to get misty-eyed. Someone raised their hand and told a story about her mother and father’s wedding, how her father had lost the ring in the grass before the ceremony, before either they or she were ever born. The pastor nodded. “Someone else?” He asked, eyes locking on them and giving them the microphone. 

The metal was clammy in their hand, and their eyes widened as they looked at it. What could they say? They couldn’t say that she was their girlfriend, because that wasn’t strictly true. They couldn’t say friend, because that wasn’t true either. They’d known her since they were three months old, been friends off and on until somewhere, the line between “just friends” and “romantic partner” had blurred. They were caught in between. It wasn’t platonic, never was platonic, but it wasn’t romantic, either. They just _were_ , and that’s all that they were. They took a deep breath. “Jaden and I have been friends since I was three months old, since she was born.” Yes, that was a good place to start, they supposed. “She’s kept me grounded for as long as I can remember. I’d have these crazy ideas, like climbing a tree that obviously wouldn’t support me or pretending to ride my dad’s dirt bike when we were three, and she’d be the one to stop me, or… or to get help when I ultimately didn’t listen and got myself stuck.” A few people laughed at the image, a few people sniffled and wiped away tears. 

At some point, they weren’t even sure what they were saying anymore, regurgitating stories and memories rapid-fire until they just felt stupid, wiping away a tear on their sleeve. Eventually, they quieted, handing the microphone to Taylor next to them, back going rigid when their mother tried to hug them. They tuned out what her other friends said, tuned everything out, focusing on the one unraveling thread of their sweater until everyone was done crying and talking and telling different aspects of _her_ life, Jaden’s life, and her mother’s. 

The slideshow was definitely the toughest part. Almost every picture of _her_ as a baby featured them as well, it had always been Jaden and Mika, and nobody else mattered. Jaden and Mika until the end. This was the end, they supposed. At some point, their father had left the room, going outside, away from everything, but they stayed. They felt like they owed her at least that much, no matter how much it hurt to see pictures of the two of them growing up, knowing that they’d never take another bad selfie together again.

The final words were something about sadness, something about Jesus, something about the potluck in the dining hall. “They didn’t want to go, not at the time they did,” The pastor enunciated. “But now that they’re up there, in Jesus’ kingdom, at God’s feet, they wouldn’t want to come back.”

They didn’t realize they’d been crying until they bit their lip trying to stay quiet, trying not to scream at the pastor and tell him that he was wrong, he was _wrong_ , she’d want to come back and lay everything to rest, everything was left unfinished and she would have hated that. But they didn’t say it, they didn’t tell the man exactly what they thought. They stayed seated while people started to leave, finally standing when they heard a familiar voice. “Hey,” He said quietly, and when they turned, a boy with a lip ring was standing in the aisle, looking at them awkwardly.

“Jayy.” Mika whispered, stumbling forwards. The boy opened his arms and they fell into them, four inch height difference be damned, and buried their head in the crook of his neck. 

They were silent for a while, completely quiet, but eventually, Mika stepped back, letting him go. He adjusted the front of his plain black t-shirt, staring at the ground for a minute before looking back up. “My mom’s over there.” He said, voice cracking as he fidgeted with his shirt, or maybe his binder.

“Yeah, okay.” They nodded, following closely behind him and awaiting another round of crying and hugs from Jayy’s mom, _her_ aunt.

 

Mika wasn’t sure quite how it happened, but sooner than later, they were informed that they would be going with Jayy’s family, to the beach, sometime after the funeral. They had gone home to change, coming back in a black tank top and their grandfather’s ripped-up old army jacket, _her_ brown leather backpack slung over their shoulder. They found Jayy in the main hall, behind a piano, playing some song or another, quiet, eyes pensive. They stood and watched for a few minutes before they went in, standing behind them. “Wanna go outside?” They asked, and Jayy jumped, eyes turning towards them.

“Yeah, okay.” He said, standing up behind them. “I’ll grab my backpack.”

They were seated on the church walk, around the corner from the sunny field everyone else was talking in. “It’s warm as fuck for September.” Mika noted, looking up at the bright blue sky.

“Yeah.” Jayy admitted, fidgeting with his backpack's top loop.

All was quiet for a moment, the two of them next to eachother on the warm cement, watching the sky. “I need a cigarette.” Mika decided, standing up. “You got one?”

“Yep.” He motioned to his backpack, and Mika led him to a stand of trees, a clearing in the middle. Jayy sat down in the middle of the clearing, Mika squatting next to him, staring at the ground. He handed them a cigarette and they lit up, cheeks hollowing around the end of it. “Those are gonna kill you.” Jayy said cynically, taking a drag off of his own.

“Great.” Mika smiled emotionlessly. “The sooner the better.”

They were silent for a moment before Jayy laughed. “This is fucked,” He said, running his hand through his dark hair. “We’re smoking cigarettes in back of a church, after my cousin’s funeral.”

“Yeah.” Mika smirked easily, emotionlessly, numbly. “This is fucked, we’re fucked, what’s new?”

“Point.” Jayy admitted, looking up through the trees and watching a lone cloud flit over the blue sky. “Point.”

**Author's Note:**

> RIP Jaden (whose last name will remain anonymous, even in death)  
> October 20, 2001 - September 1, 2016  
> I love you, I miss you, I hope I see you soon


End file.
